Document-imaging systems are often used as a platform for the management of healthcare related documents and the integration of multimedia content in a client server environment. Such systems require tools for applications to acquire, store, organize, display and manage multimedia content (including traditional reports, images, voice, video, etc.). They also require an adequate mechanism to share multimedia content with all healthcare applications regardless of where the content originated.
Document imaging is often used for long-term storage of patient data and hospital information. This data is often received electronically from a clinical or financial system or it can be input from a paper format (e.g., scanning). Electronic data (in particular, demographic data) that is stored by the document-imaging system is often sent via electronic transactions from a third-party source. Inbound transactions from any external application are handled by a receiver application. Transactions are usually sent from the application to an interface engine, which then routes the transactions to the document-imaging system. The document-imaging system can receive Imaging Style Transactions, XML, or HL7 transactions. After a transaction has been received, the transaction is parsed and the database for the document-imaging system is updated. Outbound Transactions are similarly handled by a sending application.
The document-imaging platform is typically a combination of components, each of which has a specific purpose for storing, retrieving, and/or organizing binary objects (e.g., documents) in an archive. There is need for a component that can accept output from other systems and prepare it for storage in such a way that the content of the output is stored and organized for efficient retrieval.
Accordingly, a system is needed that is capable of accepting output from these different components and from external applications and prepare it for storage in a highly efficient manner.